5 Top Reasons to Visit Alaska

by Janis on June 14, 2011

Every Tuesday is Travel Tip Day

Today: 5 Reasons to Visit Alaska

There’s a place in the United States that we love to visit. A place that’s majestic, wild and breathtaking. It’s the place where Mr. Jones was born and raised, and where some incredible friends live. It’s a place called Alaska. A place we hope you will discover for yourself.

The Top 5 Reasons to Visit Alaska

1. Wilderness

The state of Alaska is more twice the size of Texas. It’s bigger than the 22 smallest states added together.

Yet Alaska is home to only 710,000 people, and half of them live in Anchorage, the state’s largest city.

Only 20 percent of Alaska is accessible by road. Despite a land mass of 586,412 square miles, Alaska only has 12 numbered highways. This means most of Alaska is wilderness – untamed, untouched wilderness, rare to find anywhere else in the US. Read 22 Fun Facts about Alaska.

2. Wildlife

While relatively few people live in Alaska, significant populations of wildlife do exist here.

Kodiak — Alaska’s largest island — is home to the world’s largest bear species, the Kodiak Brown Bear. Haines, Alaska is home to the world’s greatest concentration of bald eagles. One challenge with spotting wildlife in Alaska: you cannot schedule it.

While there are supposedly 250 black bears and 60 grizzly bears living within urban Anchorage and the surrounding area, you don’t want to run into them. Two places to be assured of seeing bears without becoming a bear’s “snack” are the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center 1 hour south of Anchorage, and the Alaska Zoo (you can take a shuttle from downtown Anchorage near the Log Cabin Visitor’s Center.)

You probably know that Denali – formerly known as Mount McKinley –rising to 20,320 feet — is the highest peak in North America. Before the name change, it was always known locally as Denali, which means the Great One in Athabascan, the native language.

What you may not realize is that Alaska is home to 17 of the 20 tallest mountains in North America.

4. Glaciers

While ice covers only five percent of Alaska’s surface, the state contains more than 100,000 glaciers.

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, located in southeast Alaska, is home to more than 50 named glaciers, including seven tidewater glaciers that flow down to the sea. When sea water undermines the ice fronts on these glaciers, giant blocks of ice break loose and crash into the water, known as “calving”.

When ice calves from the face of a glacier, observers are treated to a noisy show and it creaks, groans and showers like a waterfall into the water below.

5. Tax Free Shopping

Okay, if spectacular wilderness, wildlife, mountains and glaciers just are not your thing, how about Tax Free Shopping? Alaska has one lowest tax burden in the United States and no state sales tax.

This means the shoes and everything else you buy – at the Nordstrom’s in Anchorage for example — are tax free. The perfect entertainment while one’s husband fishes his favorite hole.

Alaska has been a destination of adventurers and explorers since the days of Vitus Bering and Captain Cook.
If you are planning a visit to Alaska, check out these tours from Get Your Guide: